Spiderwebs
by Savannah Khoury
Summary: Spider isn’t her real name. Sure her mother gave her a name on her birth certificate, but since then it was never spoken of. Spider soon drives thirty minutes out of the city she grew up in to live in Mt. Vernon. There she finds herself in a situation t


Spider All of my life I was told that I was an accident. I didn't even have a name. Well, my mother named me for my birth certificate but after that my name hasn't been spoken of. I don't even know what my name is for that matter. All I know is my mother has a name and I don't. Her name is Jocelyn Erickson, so I am whatever Erickson. My mother's shadow. At least I was until I got away. I think I'm about 19 years old, I went to school and everyone there called me Spider because they didn't know my name, and at the time Spider Man was my favorite cartoon, so that was the name I took when I applied to school. Whenever someone asked me what my name was I would just reply, "I don't know, but you can call me Spider." Afterwards, everyone just got around to calling me Spider, even Jocelyn. Its not that my mother didn't care about me, because she did her best to feed and clothe me and sit by my side when I was sick. Sometimes she didn't earn enough money to feed the both of us, so she gave me all of her food. We live in the Bronx in New York City. Its one of those places where you hear police sirens every 5 minutes and there are always gangs hanging around. That was how my story started, with police sirens. A boy I knew from school, Lamar Powell, was beat over the head with a baseball bat and killed outside of a school dance. Lamar was one of your typical classic "bad boys". The kind that would walk around like they owned the ground they walked on, and if anyone pissed him off they were in for it, big time. Lamar also happened to be in a gang, and in my opinion a crack addict. He was left back at least twice, so when I was in 11th grade with him, he was about 19. Its not that Lamar and I were friends, let alone, we never acknowledged one another's existence. But the end of Lamar's story was the beginning of mine, so to speak. Like I was saying before, it was at a school dance, or more specifically the junior prom. I actually managed that night to have a nice dress from a bargain shop. It was such a perfect night, it felt as if nothing could ruin it. There must have been a million stars in the sky, and it was a full moon. But I don't think anyone took the time to notice that it was Friday the 13th. I was completely convinced that even though it was an unlucky day, everything would turn out perfectly. I even had a date, Andrew Fisher, who was my boyfriend at the time. (We broke up shortly afterwards when he decided that he wanted to meet more people and that we would just "be friends". That never happened.) I was waiting by the refreshment table when a boy pushed past and said, "Tell me where Powell is." I shrugged and said, "In a group of a million students you want me to tell you where one person is? Sorry." The boy gave me a patronizing look and pushed past more people. I didn't think anything of it until about a half hour later when I was dancing with Andrew a few police officers came in and told us all to wait outside, and some people did as he asked while others just waited until the police officers shoved them out. To everyone's surprise the nice warm weather we were having instantly turned boiling hot and extremely uncomfortable. There was an ambulance and a couple police cars. And being brought onto a stretcher was the unmoving inert body of Lamar Powell, with blood streaked across his face. It was the most horrible scene I have ever witnessed. Not that the blood scared me, just the fact that the sheet over his chest wasn't moving, he wasn't breathing, and we could tell. One officer was bringing a tall black boy into a car and had him in handcuffs. The boy was struggling with the officer and cursing at him. "Get the fuck away from me! I didn't do it, fuckers!" It was the boy who asked me where Lamar was in the gymnasium. I was lucky he didn't kill me. Everyone was too scared to say anything. I heard a few gasps, and some people crying, but no one spoke. A few more officers were questioning some of the students. What bothered me is how the officers brought us outside, for what? To witness seeing Lamar's body being put onto a stretcher? To scare the living daylights out of us? That's when I decided to run away. I couldn't stay remembering Lamar's death, and how easy something like that could just jump out and swallow me into a dark pit. It made me realize how I needed to treasure my life, me as Spider or whoever I was, because I could die any second any day. The problem was that I didn't know where I was going. My plan didn't come into action until my senior year. I dropped out of school to leave. The day I brought the car home, Jocelyn knew I was leaving. She sat on the front steps as usual when I pulled up in my brand new (or brand old) Volvo wagon. I bought it off some old geezer for $250.00. After all, I have been saving up for a car for the longest time, and this was when I needed one most. "You'll need a sweater incase you get cold." Jocelyn said out of the blue. I smiled weakly and said, "I'll get one then." I ran upstairs to the asylum (I call my room the asylum because it only has one tiny window with steel bars over it) and pulled out a duffel bag, throwing random objects into it. The next morning I brushed my hair, teeth, got dressed, and hopped into the car. I didn't feel the need to say bye to anyone, mainly because I didn't have much friends at school and I already said goodnight to Jocelyn before I went to sleep. Plus, what more can she expect from me? She knows this is just what I do. Saying good bye would just make it all worse, for the both of us. 


End file.
